rink if it were not so pure,

BUT IT TAKES THIRST TO RELISH WATER!

This is a tempting subject, we could say much more, but we will only add,
that the last word in the chapter, which tells of "Peter the Preacher,"
gives the result of such sermons as his--

"SAVED!"

XXIV. "WHEN SOLOMON WAS OLD."

"_It came to pass when Solomon was old_, _that his wives turned away
his heart after other Gods_."

1 KINGS xi. 4.

Who could have predicted that this would come to pass? And yet it is
often so, for it is still true that

NO AMOUNT OF KNOWLEDGE WILL SAVE FROM BACKSLIDING THOSE WHO REFUSE TO
LISTEN TO GOD.

We learn from verse 10 that God had taken pains to save Solomon from
idolatry, (see 1 Kings vi. 12, and xi. 6). But what good is it for even
God to try to save a man who will have his own way? And yet one would
have thought that a man who knew what Solomon knew, would have not bowed
down to gods of wood and stone! It is not always at our weakest place we
fail! It is well for us to be aware of this. Who would have expected
Moses to fail in his temper, or Elijah in his courage? Solomon must have
hated himself when he bowed before these graven images, and must have
looked with loathing on those filthy idols before whom he was prostrate,
and yet he went on in his evil way. How the priests who offered the
idolatrous sacrifices would rejoice in their illustrious pervert! Will
any of us ever give the foes of God cause for exultation? Do not tell me
that you are too well instructed! Are you wiser than Solomon? "Let not
the wise man glory in his wisdom. Let him that glorieth glory in this,
that he understandeth and knoweth Me."--Jer. ix, 23-24. You are safe
only as you are willing to be led by the word of God.

WHAT IS THE BIBLE TO YOU?

Is it a lamp to your feet? Not merely a lantern to keep you out of the
mire, but a treasure like that miner's lamp; a light by which he is not
only guided, but able to walk in the shadow of death. All around him is
the gas that would slay him, and yet by that lamp he walks to the place
of safety! This is what the Bible must be to you, or it is nothing.

Mind you, it is not enough for you to know the Bible. We have heard
drunken men quote it with correctness, but it had not saved them from the
demon which haunted them. It is an instructive thought that the man who
wrote some of the Bible, who is spoken of in the pulpit as "The Wise
Man," the author of